Wellington, NZ | Scratching an itch – NZ’s vinyl junkies are joining the rush to records: As vinyl sales hit record levels overseas New Zealanders are also doing their bit to keep the music alive, forking out $8 million on records last year. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), 41.3m EPs/LPs were sold in the United States last year, outstripping sales of CDs for the first time since 1987. Vinyl albums earned US$1.2 billion, compared to $483m for CDs. It’s a similar scenario here, albeit on a much smaller scale. Figures just released by Recorded Music NZ show overall physical sales of recorded music here increased by $1.7m to $11m in 2022, driven by a significant increase in vinyl sales, at $8m, up from $5.9m in 2021. That was offset slightly by a small decline in compact disc sales.
Fort Worth, TX | Best of Fort Worth: Doc’s Records & Vintage: Doc’s Records & Vintage has been a main contributor to our vinyl-buying habits for years, going back to its very first shop in Hurst, nearly two decades ago. Some of us even remember when Jerry Boyd, the father in the pop-and-son team that owns Doc’s, used to sell vinyl at record conventions in Dallas. Us and Doc’s, we go back a ways. But it’s the latter part of its name — the “Vintage” part — that has always set Doc’s apart from other record stores. And over the years, and the course of four stores, each one bigger than the last, it has become a major component to its business model. The current incarnation of son Jenkins and pop Jerry’s store, located in The Foundry District, is split evenly between record shop and vintage market. On the music side of the store, Jenkins guestimates there’s at least 4,000 records in stock, plus a virtually uncountable number of CDs.
Westport, CT | At the Westport Library you can check out books, and record an album too: Public Libraries are constantly evolving, searching for ways to serve their communities with new programs and new technology. “Libraries are institutions of life-long learning and knowledge,” said Bill Harman, executive director of the Westport Library. “What we are trying to do is evolve, so we’re using technology so we can connect with a broader segment of the community, people who are interested in books, but other means of knowledge and information.” To that end, the Westport Library rolled out a new, independent record label last year. Verso Records’ mission is to give talented musicians a leg up in the music industry, as well as give library members the chance to learn about sound production in a state-of-the-art facility.
CN | The sound of music from before: People may wonder about the reasons why someone would pay for a secondhand copy of a scratchy plastic disc that plays only on a costly turntable, when he or she could stream the same song or the same album on digital platforms at a much lower price. “It’s a minority taste but we’ve seen an increasing number of people, especially the young generations, who are embracing the vinyl records,” says Chen Huina, deputy director of the Classic Books Reading Department of the National Library of China in Beijing. “Vinyl records stand in opposition to today’s rapidly innovative, digitally driven world. Nostalgia’s role is crucial. It is like an escape from the busy modern life. “The experience of discovery, acquiring and listening to music is now so easy and commonplace. But the value of music should not be diminished…”
Beijing, CN | Exclusive Guilin Beer and Bring Your Own Vinyl Is Coming to The Factory: New Gulou venue The Factory went into soft opening last week and it’s already bringing fresh and exciting events to the capital. Tomorrow (Jun 8) will see a tap takeover by Guilin brewery Somad Brewing and then Sunday (Jun 11) it will host the first Bring Your Own Vinyl (BYOV) Fest of 2023. Hailing from beautiful Guilin, Somad Brewing was established in 2015 and has garnered much praise for its craft beers, especially its range of IPAs. The brewery was founded by Ding Ding, former lead singer of Deranged Shit, which released their first album, Kill It By The Brick, on US record label Half-Life Records. …”There’s been a good number of timid first-timers, who with encouragement stepped up to spin a few tracks, and can now be found regularly playing at clubs and organizing events around Beijing and beyond” Elmasri continues. “We’ve had people come down from other cities just to attend.”
Orlando, FL | The Orlando Punk Archive goes analog with their first vinyl release: Tireless advocates for Orlando music history past, present and future. One of our favorite pandemic year 2020 discoveries — and one of the precious few reasons to remain on Facebook — was the Orlando Punk Archive. …Orlando Punk Archive became an intriguing open-source repository for the underground music scene of a city that often doesn’t value its own history. Joshua Dobbs, a tireless advocate for Orlando punk past, present and future, runs the Orlando Punk Archive group alongside Lance White, Scott White, Gregg Blachstein and Keith Mercer. “The Punk Archive started in 2019, but the minute Scott White posted a picture of the Greening record [more on that in a moment] right after the pandemic started, it just exploded, jumped up from a couple hundred numbers to like 1,000 within a day,” remembers Dobbs.
Studio Ghibli to Release Complete Soundtrack Collection on Vinyl: Studio Ghibli has some of the most notable anime feature films in the world, and now fans can celebrate their love of them in a whole new way as Studio Ghibli is gearing up to launch a complete collection of each of its famous movie soundtracks with a special reissue on vinyl records that come packed with more than ever before! First announced to be in the works back in 2020, these new Studio Ghibli soundtracks on vinyl records will be reissues of 12 of the studios’ most prominent soundtracks with a specially colored record for each of the new releases. Studio Ghibli Records will be launching the new vinyls composed by Joe Hisashi and overseen by Hayao Miyazaki onto shelves on June 16th, and each of them features a new remaster along with various additional materials for each of the soundtracks that also include symphonic suites, concept albums and sound books.
Five album covers that look how they sound: Should we apply the “don’t judge a book by its cover” adage to album art? Or can the right accompanying visuals actually enhance an album’s sound and impact? Recently, music fans have taken to social media to share their favourite examples of album covers that they believe perfectly reflect their accompanying album’s sound. Album artwork has the potential to make or break an album, particularly those genres with audiences looking to purchase physical vinyl or CDs. Even Bruce Springsteen once stated: “I do a lot of curiosity buying; I buy it if I like the album cover, I buy it if I like the name of the band, anything that sparks my imagination.” For better or worse, music pressed onto wax has become as much a product as a piece of art, and it’s hard to ignore an album’s accompanying artwork.
